OPERATION: LABEL GMOs

Food Testing for Genetically Engineered Ingredients and Glyphosate

GMO Free USA steps up to be your consumer watchdog and announces the start of our food testing program, Operation: Label GMOs. The fight for federal mandatory labeling could take years to win. With our health at stake, we’re not willing to wait. The FDA refuses to label genetically engineered foods, so we will do it for them.

We’ll be testing foods to determine whether they contain GMOs. Additionally, because GM agriculture goes hand in hand with the use of the toxic herbicide Roundup, we’ll also be testing for the active ingredient, glyphosate. We also plan to expand testing to include 2,4-D, dicamba, atrazine, and neonicotinoid insecticides in the future. The public deserves to know the true ingredients in their food. We will test and then publish the results. We’ll be announcing the results in our email newsletters.

A recent report found glyphosate in human breast milk and urine and there is growing concern that it bio-accumulates in our bodies. Babies and children are of utmost concern because they are undergoing rapid growth and development and their delicate developmental processes are easily disrupted by toxins. In one peer-reviewed study, Roundup was found to be the most toxic of nine herbicides & insecticides tested. In another study, glyphosate was found to be harmful at levels in the parts per billion. Long term health studies are clearly needed. Why would we want to take the risk of consuming glyphosate, in any amount, without understanding the long-term impact on our health?

“At this point, we simply do not have the scientific evidence to know whether the difference in pesticide levels will impact a person’s health over a lifetime, though we do know that children – especially young children whose brains are developing – are uniquely vulnerable to chemical exposures,” said Joel Forman, MD, FAAP, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health. Amid rising concerns about the lack of independent, long term GMO and glyphosate toxicity testing, we need to know if there are GMOs and glyphosate in our food. In the wake of Consumer Reports’ recently published test results on genetically engineered corn and soy in processed foods, there is clearly a need for ongoing testing to hold manufacturers accountable for the ingredients in their products.

Contingent on funding, GMO Free USA plans to test one product per week. We are asking for sustaining donors to help us launch this program. Your financial support of our food testing program will provide you, your family and the rest of the country with the information needed to make informed food choices.

Testing will be conducted by accredited independent laboratories. Our program will consist of testing for GMO corn, GMO soy and glyphosate. We are not testing GMO content in refined sugar or canola, cottonseed and soybean oils due to the inability of current detection methods to find GMO DNA in those products – they are too heavily processed. We will, however, test for the presence of glyphosate in those products.

Because product testing is complicated, the cost of testing a single product for GMOs and glyphosate can be as much as $1,100 including shipping, depending on the ingredients. Sustaining monthly donations at any level will give our program the support it needs to continue over the long term. Sustaining monthly donors at the $75 level or higher will be covering the average cost of testing one product over the course of their annual giving. Donate at this level and choose a product that you’re concerned with!

With your help, Operation: Label GMOs will hit the ground running and put the food industry on notice. We will know what’s in our food! Become a sustaining donor today.